CRAIG MAZIN:
is based absolutely in reality.
That fungus is real,
and if it were to be able to infect humans,
it would go like that.
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
NEIL DRUCKMANN:
so they're already terrifying.
So instead, you go in the reverse.
Let's explore the beauty of fungal growth.
When it has more of a human side,
more of a beautiful side, it makes it even scarier.
They have so much saturated, vibrant colors and patterns
and fractal ways that they grow.
How do we capture that?
'Cause that's more interesting than just creating the monster.
These are a lot of our very early concepts and busts.
We're following real reference and real nature
of real fungus and real mushrooms.
Once we knew what the colors were,
then we would paint a suit to match.
We would glue all the mushrooms and everything onto the suits,
and then the suits would go over to Sage and her team,
and they would cut the costumes
for the mushrooms to be growing through.
Each clicker is designed individually.
And the costume had to be durable enough
to go through all of the crazy moves that the clickers have.
And you never go into battle with one costume...
(INFECTED SCREECHING)
CYNTHIA SUMMERS:
So, you know, makeup, effects, and costumes
would be sitting on set, biting their nails,
just hoping that everything stays together.
One of the changes that Neil and I felt
we needed to make was the way the fungus would spread.
We started looking at something called mycelium,
which are these threads that make up fungus
and the idea that if you're infected,
these threads grow in you
and begin to come out through your throat.
The nightmare of being infected by someone doing something
that is as human and beautiful as a kiss
felt horrifying to us.
BELLA RAMSEY:
the clickers really felt real.
ANNA TORV:
I didn't want that in my head to go home and sleep,
and then you have to be kind of like,
"Hi! How are you?"
It's not just what they look like,
it's the physicality and the way that they move
is what makes them so creepy.
But impressive.
TERRY NOTARY:
we get into the zone of being the character
rather than playing the characters.
It had to feel like nature was unfolding
in a scary, scary way.
ALEX WANG:
Working with Terry was amazing.
At the end of our cul-de-sac scene,
Terry and I conducted a mo-cap session
with all the stunt actors.
SEAN NOWLAN:
that they can have the tracking dots put on them.
And then, the cameras can pick up
all of these little, nuanced motions.
BLAINE LOUGHEED:
to guide the digital characters,
whether it would be jumping or running,
crawling out of holes,
whether they're attacking somebody at full flight
or messing with them on the ground.
NOWLAN:
onto a CG character.
WANG:
It was very important that when we saw the child clicker,
that we understood it was a young girl.
We referenced what the original actress did,
her movements.
We realized that what we needed to do
was expose more of her childlike features.
One of the scarier monsters that I've ever seen
is the bloater.
(BLOATER GROWLS, GURGLES)
We were debating quite a bit whether we wanted
to have a bloater in this season or not.
Craig called me and was like,
"Okay, what if we did the bloater?"
Work on the bloater started quite early on,
obviously, starting with the game
and then building models.
For the design process of the bloater,
we had all the intentions in the beginning
to shoot the bloater practically.
NOWLAN:
from the prosthetic suit,
just enough to know that
we wouldn't be able to get away with using the practical bloater
and CG bloater in the same sequence.
When he emerged out of the hole, it was an amazing moment
watching such an iconic character
from the game become a reality.
DRUCKMANN:
this feeling of pride that the set design,
the costume design, the look of the clickers,
the sound of the clickers--
We worked so hard to make sure they sounded just like the game.
(SCREECHING)
I watch it, and I get emotional
because it does it justice and then some.
There's something really beautiful and moving about that.
♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪